As Phoebe Prince bullying facts emerge, South Hadley residents renew calls for school officials to resign

The Republican/DAVE ROBACKLuke T. Gelinas, of South Hadley, on Monday said School Superintendent Gus A. Sayer, South Hadley High School Principal Daniel T. Smith and School Committee Chairman Edward J. Boisselle should step down.

SOUTH HADLEY - As more devastating allegations have emerged about the Phoebe N. Prince bullying case, some local critics of school officials have renewed their calls for resignations.
Luke T. Gelinas said Monday School Superintendent Gus A. Sayer and South Hadley High School Principal Daniel T. Smith as well as School Committee Chairman Edward J. Boisselle should step down.
The parent and citizen activist called for resignations in view of more details of the bullying as presented in Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth D. Scheibel’s criminal complaints against three 16-year-old girls in the case. In all, six former high school classmates of Prince have pleaded innocent to charges ranging from statutory rape to civil rights violations resulting in body injury and harassment.
Among the allegations is that the 15-year-old Prince went to an administrator before her Jan. 14 suicide by hanging and asked permission to go home because she was afraid of being beat up by bullies.
That and other details in the complaint describing bullying in the classroom, in the hallways, in the cafeteria, in the school library and on the way home have stoked the fires of Gelinas and other School Department critics calling for resignations.
Despite Prince’s concerns, the complaint filed by Scheibel on Thursday states, she was told she had to stay in school.
“It is typical of what was happening,” Gelinas said. “The truth is just going to keep coming out.”
“It is pretty obvious they are not providing the leadership to have safe schools,” Darby J. O’Brien, a parent and friend of the Prince family who had earlier called for resignations, said.
A local advertising agency owner, O’Brien said staffers were aware of the bullying and they could have nipped it in the bud by talking to some of the students involved.
Sayer has said that Smith did not become aware of Prince being bullied at the school until Jan. 7 and issued discipline promptly. Scheibel said during her March 29 press conference announcing the indictments of six of Prince’s schoolmates in the matter that it was common knowledge among the student body the girl, who had moved here recently from Ireland, was being bullied. The district attorney called educators’ handling of the matter “troublesome,” but said their actions or lack thereof did not rise to being criminal. Scheibel’s complaint did not state a time frame as to when Prince asked to be released from school.
Gelinas, who has asked officials to step down in the past, said he will call for resignations during the public commentary part of the School Committee’s next meeting set for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the high school.
Sayer said Prince went to an assistant principal who was tied up handling another disciplinary matter and was told to go back to class for that reason. Sayer said the incident was reported third-hand in the district attorney’s complaint.
The school superintendent, whose contract runs through June 30 and who, at 67, is one of the oldest school superintendents in the Bay State, said he has no intention of stepping down. Sayer said the calls for resignations are always from “the same two guys,” alluding to Gelinas and O’Brien.
Boisselle said there should be “serious consequences” if an administrator was aware of the bullying and did not take action and that school officials will know more after they meet with Scheibel Wednesday.
“We are not going to be pushed around by a mob mentality,” Boisselle said, in explaining why there will be no resignations. “There is no basis in fact that Dan or Gus have done anything wrong in this situation.”
Smith did not return telephone calls. The matter also continues to be the subject of postings on social networking sites like Facebook. A Facebook site titled “I Support Mr. Dan Smith of SHHS” had 902 fans as of late Monday afternoon, while the “Phoebe Prince Memorial Page” had 3,488 fans.
“With everything going on he deserves our support,” text on the pro-Smith site states. “It is not his fault about the bullying incident. If they want his resignation then they should also have all the deans at the high school as well.” As for a recent survey of staffers at Michael E. Smith Middle School showing more than 60 percent fear retaliation from “the administration,” Sayer said it was not a scientific poll nor was it done by the South Hadley Education Association, which represents teachers and other School Department employees. It does nor pertain to his office or the Prince situation, he added.
“It was not answered by a lot of people because they did not think it was worth answering,” Sayer said.
Gov. Deval Patrick briefly entered the fray while being interviewed late last week on the Jim and Margery Show on radio station WTKK. He expressed disappointment with school officials’ handling of the bullying, saying there is no substitute for adults stepping up in such instances.
“The adults don’t seem to have acted like adults,” Patrick said. “They (educators) should certainly be held accountable.”
Terrence M. Dunphy, the attorney for Austin Renaud, has filed a motion in Hampshire Superior Court in Northampton seeking copies of any of Prince’s medical and/or psychological records. Renaud, 18, of Springfield pleaded innocent April 6 to one count of statutory rape in the affair. Dunphy also seeks such potentially exculpatory information such as whether Prince had ever lied about any material in regard to the charge or given conflicting accounts.
The Springfield lawyer also wants information about whether Prince had been sexually abused by someone other than Renaud and whether she had ever been the subject of an investigation by the state Department of Social Services.
Meanwhile, the situation has continued to be covered extensively by media outlets in this country as well as overseas. People magazine recently published its third story concerning Prince.